Subject: I Read Some Books this Year
First things first some housekeeping! As you may have noticed, I’ve given in and just put this newsletter on Substack. It’s still available at (https://nome.land) and it always will be. However, the previous newsletter service I was using has changed quite a bit, plus I’m pretty sure it was going straight to spam for about 50% of you. You may be surprised to discover that you are still subscribed! I haven’t written anything in about a year, so if you haven’t heard from me since last February, you haven’t missed anything.
If you don’t want to be here anymore, never fear! You can just click the “unsubscribe” link/button and I won’t even be offended.
Farewell, 2025
That was a year and now it’s over. Frankly, everyone I know had shitty things happen of varying degrees of shittiness so we’re just not going to talk about any of that. Good-bye, previous year.
Some Books
I read a number of books in 2025. Some of them were better than others. This is not all of them.
Big Swiss — Jen Beagin
Probably my favorite book I read all year, shout-out to Kayta for the recommendation. The writing style is not just unique, but it’s so deeply funny in a way that I am ill-equipped to describe. You just have to read it yourself. It is a book that is at times (most of them) deeply cringe and unsettling, and constantly made me aware of the fact that how we perceive ourselves is often so different from how others perceive us. Also: horny eviseration of therapyspeak.
Camp Damascus — Chuck Tingle
Did you know that Chuck Tingle writes semi-normal books now? Like, not just meme-porn-books? If you’ve ever found yourself thinking, wow I wish more books were from the perspective of an autistic queer narrator and were deeply creepy and gross but ultimately heartwarming, then have I got the book for you! It’s a really fun book about a gay conversion camp, which are not words I thought that I would say.
Ancillary Justice — Ann Leckie
There’s a whole trilogy and I read them all. AI, gender, free will, politics of manners, and so, so much tea (actual tea, in teacups, being drunk). I enjoyed this sci-fi series but your mileage may vary; the first book is still my favorite, but they were all worth reading. If you don’t like reading lots and lots of scenes about military officers having tea and analyzing the subtle behaviors of their companions, you may not enjoy it quite as much.
All Systems Red — Martha Wells
Heyo it’s the Murderbot books, and I read all of them!! I could not even make it through the first episode of the tv show because it just felt so different from the books. I could imagine liking the tv show if I didn’t already love my book murderbot. We get more sci-fi with more AI and gender, and also AI as a sort of neurodivergent representation which makes sense because AI would not think like a neurotypical human. These books are fun and the POV is fun and I loved them and so will you.
Liberation Day — George Saunders
This wasn’t my favorite George Saunders collection but it was still delightful. If you like George Saunders’ other books, you’ll most likely like this one, too.
Chronology of Water — Lidia Yuknavitch
I’ve had this book recommended to me many times. I finally tried to read it and honestly I could not finish it. It’s an autobiography and I get that Yuknavitch does some amazing things with the fluidity of memory and storytelling and all of that, but I found it to be alternatingly genius and simply unpleasant. I think sometimes unflinching honesty can be too unflinching.
Sirens of Titan — Kurt Vonnegut
I loved Vonnegut in high school, as I’m sure many of you did. Reading him now, and this book in particular, was rough. He was, as always, a delightful storyteller and his style is about as wry as it gets. But now I’m older and can’t help but notice certain things, and reading it I just kept getting the feeling that he didn’t really view women as people. He’s not one of those authors who seems to hate women—they just are significantly less real people than the men in the story. It made it much harder to enjoy once I noticed that and couldn’t stop noticing that.
What Else
I read some other books but I didn’t take notes on them so they might as well be dust by now. My memory for these things grows weaker by the year. I watched quite a few movies last year, and these are the ones I would like you to see:
- RRR
- Friendship
- Bodies Bodies Bodies
- Sinners
- One Battle After Another
And?
I will try and write another newsletter soon, with the return of the advice column (very popular) and probably some other dumb thing I’m into now, like playing fake online Survivor on Discord with people twenty years younger than me.